


i wanna come home to you (but home is just a room full of my safest sound)

by gustin_puckerman



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 13:56:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6857755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gustin_puckerman/pseuds/gustin_puckerman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nat wanted to see Bucky, but it was too late. Post-Civil War. MCU-compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i wanna come home to you (but home is just a room full of my safest sound)

Despite the fact that she’s shot T’Challa, the King is generous. A kind man; firm, but heavily principled. Natasha can tell he’s not happy with how things went when he was so damn near on capturing Barnes, but since the truth came out, he’s relaxed somewhat, especially now with Zemo under such critical eyes. And when Natasha comes, he’s accepted her arrival as though it’s something he’s been expecting for a while.

There is something irksome in the way people treated you like you belong when in reality, you don’t. It’s been so hard, these past few years, with SHIELD falling and Ultron rising and now the Civil War. It’s like the moment Natasha knew where she was in the world, _who she is_ , the universe erases all of her effort. And she’s left there, to be flung back to this spot where she has to start it all over again.

She’s without identity now, yet again.

But despite the irritation on how welcoming the Wakandans are (like she hasn’t once tried to electrocute their king), she can’t help but to acknowledge the warmth, the luxury.

At least while she’s here, she thinks, she’s safe. King T’Challa has promised her so. And that, she takes, as one huge relief. She thinks she needs a breather. She’s been travelling for far too long now ... and just for —

He’s gone by the time she arrives.

She tries not to think so much about it now that she’s staring at his sleeping body. _James Buchanan Barnes_ , is the name on the new medical file placed by the table besides the tube — blue, shiny, inviting. Natasha doesn’t pick it up to read. She thinks she’s afraid, or maybe she just doesn’t know what to expect. Nothing on that file will have any history of where Barnes had been and yet—

Natasha stares.

Long and hard and for hours. Curling on one of the swivel chairs and looking at her hands and wondering what she’ll do with them now. She’s not a spy. Not on anybody’s side. She had just wanted what’s best for the team — even if Tony see it one way, and Steve sees it another.

The doctors and medics shuffle around her without a word. They’d chirp among each other, maybe even ask who is she and what she’s doing here — but none dare to approach. 

Natasha doesn’t know what to do.

Her chest shakes when her shoulders are made to stand as tough as steel, and she’s looking at Barnes’ body and the missing arm and something in her head — in her _heart_ — thumps like they’ve been waiting for him. Been waiting their whole lives. And Natasha is _afraid_.

She is scared beyond her imagination because this is not natural. Because sometimes when she closes her eyes she sees her trembling hands and she sees metal fingers curling around it; sometimes when it’s too dark at night and everything gets a little too quiet for its own good, she sees his form hiding in the shadows and he’s broken — parched at every edge — but he’s _hers_. And in return, she’s _his_. And she knows him.

 _She knows him_.

—but how do you start to tell it? How do you start to confront such ugly truths because her body might recognise Barnes, but she? She has no idea who this man is. She still wants him, though.

At least to talk.

At least ... to hear that _voice_.

Maybe smile. Yeah, she would’ve liked a smile. 

“You know of him, Miss Romanoff?” T’Challa’s voice comes interrupting the fourth day Natasha finds herself perching in front of Barnes’ cryo cage, but Natasha isn’t startled. 

On her lips are a shy of a smirk, but in her eyes are exhaustion. She’s tired. So tired of remaking herself. Of being lost every time. And here is a man, just at the tips of her fingertips, that might actually tell her who she can be, who he aspires her to be. (But why does she need him to tell her? Why is he so important? All those dark nights, those harsh whispers—) 

“What makes you say that?”

“Pardon me, but —” T’Challa pauses, golden eyes glinting at Bucky’s frozen body with an ease that he doesn’t wear before. This is a King now, Natasha realises. Mighty. Calm. And for a moment, she is in awe. “You gaze upon Sergeant Barnes like Captain Rogers does. Except ... with more longing perhaps. Like you haven’t quite settled an affair of business with our sleeping man.”

The smirk turns apologetic then, and Natasha is ashamed in how weak she’s been acting. How easily her body languages has been interpreted. “You could say something like that.”

This time, T’Challa has his eyebrows shoot up, and for a moment, Natasha is pleased to see she manages such a reaction from him. “So, you _are_ acquainted with Sergeant Barnes, then?”

“I—” She looks at Barnes, suddenly feeling foolish that she’d hope he would wake up then. “I don’t know. I remember him — but ... I don’t. Do I — do I make sense?” And suddenly Natasha is timid, back to the six year old who’s just received her first training at snapping a man’s neck.

T’Challa looks thoughtful for a moment, handsome.  “Given your history—” He says, she doesn’t wince, “I suppose not.”

She doesn’t know why she’s disappointed by the answer, but she is: one hand now coming up to the glass and touching the area where Barnes had lay his still fingers. There’re little bruises on his knuckles. Tiny scars. It makes her smile a little.

“You want him to wake up.”

“I don’t know what I want,” Not with Steve’s best friend. She just wants answers, she thinks. Wants to know if he remembers her like she remembers him — in pieces, barely matching one another, but it’s there. It’s there. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow, first thing in the morning. Thank you for your hospitality, Your Highness. It’s been—”

“—pleasurable, I hope?”

“Safe. I like it. Maybe I’ll come visit again.”

“Perhaps. Though I hope in better condition.”

“You mean when I’m not a fugitive?”

T’Challa laughs, and Natasha feels normal for a moment. They’re flirting, right? She doesn’t know why that feels a little wrong somewhat, to do that in front of Barnes. That night, before she leaves, she visits him again. His tube is highlighted with lights, bright and illuminating and for a moment, it’s as though he’s been put in an unlikely halo. She brushes her hand down his file again, over the name that she doesn’t remember and smiles.

“I’ll come for you again, James.” She says, and it feels right.

 _James_.

(She said, “You could at least recognise me” and Bucky remembers. He _remembers_.)


End file.
